The Ultimate RAM Speed Test
By Rich Miller on Apr 16, 2008 in Uncategorized
Is fast memory really worth it? The folks at Tom’s Hardware set out to find out, and the result is Tom’s Ultimate RAM Speed Test. Here’s an excerpt:
Memory vendors have become excellent at marketing their latest high-end products: DDR3-2000 speeds are currently considered state of the art for enthusiast Intel platforms based on Intel’s P35, X38, X48 chipsets or the new Nvidia 7 series. But how much sense do these products really make? While mainstream DDR2 memory has reached almost ridiculously low price levels - you can get two 2 GB DDR2-800 DIMMs for less than $80 - DDR3 memory at 1600 speed or faster easily costs five times as much, without delivering even double the performance. In fact, for the vast majority of users, the difference between mainstream and high-end memory turns out to be extremely small.
Their conclusion: “The results must look disappointing for the memory vendors, as the largest performance differences we found amount to 7-8% with DivX and WinRAR, while almost all other benchmarks and applications perform alike: a 1-3% performance delta cannot be noticed at all.” Read the full story for more.
